Another day another post with the Indicted Impeached Insult Comedian side by side with a notorious criminal. In this case, it’s Charlie Lucky Luciano, the man who organized organized crime.
Trump is often compared to mob bosses, so it’s time to go big with the boss of bosses. Unlike Trump, Luciano disliked chaos and preferred to keep a low profile. That ended when then Manhattan DA Tom Dewey went after him in 1938. Lucky was finally SOL: Shit out of luck.
Who knew that People v. Luciano set a precedent for People v. Trump? Dennis Aftergut and Philip Allen Lacovara, that’s who. They’ve written a fascinating article for Slate that compares the cases and finds this striking parallel:
“Much of Trump’s defense at trial consists of getting prosecution witnesses to admit that Trump himself didn’t falsify his company’s books, because others in his tightknit enterprise made the physical entries and drafted the checks that he signed with his notorious black Sharpie.
His attempt to insulate himself from the final stages of the scheme enables Trump and his lawyers to assure his credulous supporters that the district attorney has nothing on him. But the jury will soon hear that New York criminal law is not so naïve as to allow the ringleader of a criminal scheme to get off scot-free, simply because his minions did the deeds.
Under a long-standing rule of Criminal Law 101, acts by any co-conspirator are attributable to each member of the conspiracy, if the acts are intended to further the object of the conspiracy. In other words, each conspirator is liable for the crimes of the others committed in pursuit of the illegal objective. It doesn’t matter who committed the act or who didn’t.
But wait, you say! Prosecutors did not charge a conspiracy in this case.
That’s where People v. Luciano comes in. The New York Court of Appeals there made clear that if a conspiracy is proven by the evidence, it need not be charged for the rule of vicarious liability to apply.
Accordingly, because prosecutors in Trump’s case have laid a sufficient evidentiary foundation for the jury to find that there was a criminal scheme with multiple participants, Justice Juan Merchan will instruct jurors that, should they determine that Trump participated in the broader conspiracy, they may find him liable for any and all other conspirators’ actions.”
Luciano was convicted of running a massive prostitution operation. In layman’s terms, Lucky was a pimp and a panderer. The Kaiser of Chaos is a different kind of panderer: he panders to his base while whining about non-existent witch hunts and projecting his malefactions on to his enemies.
The post title poses more than a rhetorical question. It’s obvious who’s lucky, Defendant Trump. He won’t be exiled like Luciano but like Lucky his luck is about to run out.
The porn star hush money election interference trial has revealed Trump for the small and petty man that he has always been. He glowers, snoozes, and displays contempt for the process but he’s neck deep in shit and sinking fast.
The trial is dark today so the Kaiser of Chaos can attend his youngest son’s high school graduation. I have no idea what the Trumps think their kid is Barron of, but his father’s legal future is anything but baronial. Once he’s a convicted criminal, the dynamics of the race will shift. Other than the most extreme MAGA maggots, who wants a convicted felon as president? That is NOT a rhetorical question.
The last word goes to John Lee Hooker and Robert Cray: